


First Time for Everything

by sans_patronymic



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Companionable Snark, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Feelings, Humor, Parenthood, Seven Year Gap (Dragon Ball)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-10-18 15:38:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20641562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sans_patronymic/pseuds/sans_patronymic
Summary: When Bulma goes on a much-needed getaway with her dad, Vegeta and Trunks are forced to do a little father-son bonding of their own.





	1. Chapter 1

The sound of the door opening hit Vegeta like a shot, waking him out of a dead sleep. He stared into the darkness with wide eyes, heart thumping in his chest. Beside him, Bulma rolled over with a whimper, unaware that they were not alone.

As unceremoniously as it had opened, the door closed. Vegeta felt the blankets shift as tiny hands and feet jockeyed for traction. He reached up and caught hold of a pajamaed arm.

“What’re you doing here, boy?” he asked the darkness. 

“I can’t sleep. I want Mom,” Trunks replied, full-voiced as if it was noon and not midnight. His father’s grip on his wrist tightened.

“Hush!”

They both cast a nervous eye to the other side of the bed, counting the seconds as Bulma’s breath rose and fell, metered and undisturbed. Satisfied, Vegeta let go.

“Your mother’s sleeping. Go back to your room,” he said.

“Why don’t _you_ go back to _your_ room.”

Touché.

Trunks knelt in the space between his parents’ legs, rubbing sleepy eyes with the back of his hand. The sight was adorable enough to make Vegeta feel almost charitable. Almost. He nudged the boy towards the foot of bed. 

“Scram, brat.”

“How come you get to sleep in here and I don’t?”

“Because I was here first.”

“Yeah, but she’s _my_ mom.”

A pale arm made a lazy arch through the air, landing across Vegeta’s chest. “Gee? Whatimessit?” Bulma asked groggily.

“See what you did?” Vegeta said to Trunks.

“Mom, Dad won’t let me sleep in here with you.”

Bulma’s hand groped its way across the bed to pat Trunks’s knee. “Baby, I thought you were gonna sleep in your own bed from now on, like a big boy.”

“I was, but...”

_But I don’t want to be alone tonight._ Funny, that was what Vegeta had said when he’d crawled in after her. 

Bulma took a deep breath and turned over to face them both. She tugged the hem of Trunks’s sleeve, invitingly. The boy ferreted his way under the covers. From how Vegeta sighed, one would have thought his ancestors had just been spat on.

“He’s not sleeping in the middle.”

“How come?” asked Trunks.

“You kick.”

“Trunks, honey, why don’t you move over here?”

For her efforts, Bulma was rewarded with an elbow in her gut and a hand on her face as Trunks climbed over her. She slid across the mattress, taking her rightful place between father and son. Vegeta’s arm around her and Trunk’s head upon her shoulder, they grappled her with a desperation that would have been amusing, if she’d been awake enough to appreciate it.

“I guess you two are just going to have to cuddle each other while I’m gone,” Bulma said.

“Hmph,” said Vegeta.

“I don’t want you to go,” said Trunks, which was more or less what Vegeta had meant, only in words.

“You’ll barely even miss me—you’ll see. Now, close your eyes and go to sleep. I have to get up in like six hours.”

“Five,” Vegeta corrected, but who was counting.

A yawn was her only reply.

“I don’t need your mother to babysit me.”

“It’s not for _you_, it’s for _Trunks_.”

“Are you suggesting I can’t take care of my own son?”

Bulma never felt the urge to throttle him quite so strongly as she did when Vegeta started his Under-Appreciated Father of the Year act.

It wasn’t that she doubted his parenting abilities, _per se_, but this would be the longest he’d ever been alone with Trunks. It was simply a question of lacking experience. For the four hundredth time that morning, Bulma considered cancelling her trip.

“All I meant was you can call my mom if you need anything; she’ll come over. You can call me, too, but with the time zones and all…”

“We’ll be fine,” Vegeta assured her.

“But definitely call me if something happens. Something bad, I mean.”

“Hmph. It’s four days. What could possibly happen in four days?”

“I don’t know. He could fall out of a tree—“

“Unlikely.”

“—or get hit by a car—“

“Uneventful.”

“—or get kidnapped or something.”

“Bulma, I won’t let anything happen to him.” 

His tone was serious, entreating, and more than a little bit reprimanding. Guilt crept up Bulma’s spine. A man who could decide the fate of whole worlds could surely handle a six-year-old on his own. At least for a few days.

“We’ll be fine,” he repeated. “Finish packing. I’ll see what the brat wants for breakfast.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call him a brat.”

“And I wish you wouldn’t spoil him.”

“Is that supposed to make us even?”

“I believe it’s called ‘compromising’. I’ve been told I should do it more often,” Vegeta answered with a smirk on his way out the door. 

Cheeky son of a bitch.

Ordinarily, she found his smugness amusing, maybe even a little endearing, but today, it set her teeth on edge. As a matter of fact, for the last few months, _everything_ seemed to set her teeth on edge: Vegeta’s snark, Trunks’s whininess, dirty dishes left in the sink, toys on the floor, the fact that she couldn’t so much as enjoy a glass of wine in the bathtub without one or both of them pestering her about _something_.

She was one more dirty-sock-found-in-the-couch-cushions or ‘I refuse to answer the phone in the Gravity Room’ away from a complete and total nervous breakdown.

What she needed was a vacation. And while a four-day technology expo wasn’t exactly a tropical island, she was looking forward to doing something _she_ wanted to do. Not for her family, or her friends. Not for the company. Not for the good of humanity. Just for herself. Because it was interesting, and because she and her father had gone every year before she’d gotten pregnant and hadn’t been to a single one since.

Now that she thought about it, for the last six years, she hadn’t been anywhere for more than twenty-four hours without Trunks by her side. Most nights, there was still a fifty-fifty chance she’d wake up to a sniffling child demanding to sleep in her bed. She didn’t resent his dependency, but it probably wasn’t entirely healthy. According to Vegeta, it was down-right criminal, but, then again, he was also the poster child for abandonment issues. She took his opinions with a grain of salt. And lately, she’d been taking _a lot_ of salt.

She had finished capsulizing the last of her toiletries when her phone began to buzz. She looked at it, a familiar, mustachioed face filling the screen, and accepted the call.

“Hey, Dad,” Bulma said, tossing the capsule into her bag. “Are we all set?”

“Nearly—fuel tank’s full, mix tape’s ready, and I’ve decided what to get at the drive-thru. Only thing is, I seem to be missing my co-pilot.”

“Be there in a minute. I just have to say goodbye to Trunks and I’ll be right out.”

“Take your time, sweetheart.”

This was really happening. She was actually going to get out of the Capsule Corp compound for reasons that didn’t involve running errands or finalizing business deals. She was actually going to leave her only child alone with a man whose idea of ‘quality family time’ was everyone sitting in the same room, ignoring one another. These two facts settled uneasily in the pit of her stomach.

To Vegeta’s credit, Trunks was already dressed for school by the time she made it downstairs. He was sitting at the kitchen table, spoon slowly shoveling cereal into his mouth while the television flashed with the animated antics of a rabbit.

“Grandpa’s outside, so I guess I’m going,” Bulma announced, hoisting her bag onto her shoulder. Trunks continued to munch away, face glued to the cartoons on the screen. “Hello? Remember me? Your mother, who’s leaving?”

“Huh?” He asked around a mouthful of corn flakes.

“I’m going.”

A frown set across the boy’s features.

“Can I have a hug before I go?”

Trunks slipped out of his chair and hurried over to wrap his arms around her waist. He rested his chin against her belly and looked up at her with his perfect, angelic face. “Love you.”

Bulma had promised herself she wasn’t going to cry. “Love you, too, kiddo. Take care of your dad, okay?”

“Mhm.”

“And if you need me, call me. Right?" She ran her hand through his hair and down his cheek. "Oh, man...I am gonna miss you.”

“I’m gonna miss you too, Mom.”

“Your father’s waiting for you,” Vegeta said, slithering past them through the doorway.

She gave her son a squeeze and a kiss. “I’m going! I’m going. Bye, baby.”

“Bye, Mommy.”

“You,” she said to Vegeta, “make sure he does his homework. And that he eats food. Real food—not just junk food. There’s tons of capsules in the pantry if the fridge gets low, so no excuses.”

“Understood.”

“And I really don’t want him training more than twelve hours this weekend, either.”

“Any further orders, general?”

“Yeah, kiss me.”

“Gross! No kissing!” Trunks declared, but his parents didn’t listen.

It was strange to have a proper goodbye. She couldn’t really remember if they ever had. Bulma pulled back, her arms still wrapped around Vegeta’s neck, and smiled to herself.

“What?”

“Just realizing I missed a glorious opportunity to sneak out in the middle of the night and see how you like it, for once.”

“Ha-ha,” he said, thoroughly unamused.

“Notes for next time, I guess.” She kissed him once more before disentangling herself. “Okay, I’m definitely, actually, _really_ leaving. So, bye, nerds. I’ll see you both on Sunday.”

“Mhm,” said Vegeta.

“Bye,” said Trunks.

“Bye,” said Bulma, inching towards the front hall like a geriatric snail.

The next time Bulma took a full breath, she was sitting in the front seat of the plane. Her father stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray and fastened his seat belt. The faint hit of nicotine in the air made her palms itch. Damn, did she miss it.

“Ready to take off, Dr. Briefs?” he asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be, Dr. Briefs.”

She punched the ignition and gripped the yoke. The engine started up with a whir. Dashboard instruments illuminated. Indicator lights switched from red to green. The line of her mouth began to quiver. Her eyes felt hot.

“You better drive, Dad,” she said, turning the controls over.

“Everything okay, sweetheart?”

What was it about being asked if everything was okay that made everything suddenly and extremely Not Okay? Bulma leaned back against her seat, blinking away tears. This was the first day of Kindergarten all over again: Trunks had been nervous, but excited. Bulma, on the other hand, had had a breakdown in the parking lot. Undeterred, Dr. Briefs Sr. pulled back on the controls, easing them into take off.

“It’s normal to be a little sad. Your mother was the same way when you were young—hated leaving you and your sister for more than a few hours. Even after I built the Baby Wrangling Device.”

“What the heck was the Baby Wrangling Device? I don’t remember that.”

“No, well… it had to be retired shortly after completion. Couldn’t really get it to distinguish between you two and Scratch. Plus, it had a bad habit of dishing out electric shocks.”

“Yikes.”

“Probably just loose wiring, but you know how your mother is.”

“Yeah, I do.” She was smiling now, watching the ground as her house become a small white dot among many, as West City became a blur, as the horizon stretched out before them. “I’m glad we’re doing this.”

“So am I. Now, wha’d’ya say to some tunes?”

“Hell yeah.”

While many things had changed since the last time they’d made this trip, her father’s taste in music wasn’t one of them. With the press of a button, the cockpit filled with psychedelic rock, the muddled chords reverberating through the speakers like a bad dream. It was a lot to take in first thing in the morning, but it was just like old times and Bulma wouldn’t have had it any other way. She settled back with a sigh. For the first time in years, she gave herself permission to let go.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vegeta helps Trunks with his homework, Bulma calls home, and father and son reflect on absence and loss.

Of all of the impossible tasks that had ever been set before him in his six, long years of life, Trunks decided that first-grade social studies was definitely the worst.   


At least in kindergarten they’d gotten to learn about cool things, Nemurian ruins and King Piccolo—who was a lot like Uncle Piccolo, but meaner. Now, it was all abstract concepts like Community and Fairness and a lot of worksheets that asked him to do things he didn’t know how to do.

He had been staring at the same piece of paper for the last twenty minutes and so far all he’d managed to do was write his name in the upper, right-hand corner. Ordinarily, this was the point at which he’d throw in the towel and ask Mom for help. Only, she wasn’t here. And she wasn’t going to be here for three and a quarter more _very_ long days. That meant he was left with only one option.

Trunks knew his father was smart. Not Mom-smart, but Vegeta was smart in his own sort of way. He talked in big, spelling-test-sized words. He knew about injuries, how to inflict them and how to care for them. He was good with numbers, and even though Mom insisted calculators had been invented for a reason, Trunks still envied the way he could glance at a pile of equations and instantly, accurately, say that the answer was two.  


All the same, there was something about asking his father for help that filled him with apprehension. Maybe it was a fear of being seen as weak. Or, maybe, it was because he wasn’t sure Vegeta knew enough about Earth to be of much assistance.

When Trunks walked into the kitchen, Vegeta was holding a box of frozen fish sticks, his brow furrowed in concentration over the directions printed on the back.

“Did you finish your homework?” he asked without bothering to look up.  


“Not yet.”

“Why not?”  


The tiles on the kitchen floor were a sort of pale cream color. Trunks outlined one with with his big toe, liking the scratchy feel of the grout against his skin.

“Well? What are you waiting for?” Vegeta asked, setting the oven to preheat.

“Can you help me?”

“I thought the point was for you to do it by yourself.”

“Yeah, but Mom always helps me,” Trunks said and hastened to add, “It’s not like _helping_ helping. More like watching. Just in case I mess up really bad or something.”  


Vegeta glanced at him, then back to oven. It would need a good fifteen minutes to come up to temperature, anyway. He returned the box of fish sticks to the freezer with a sigh. 

“Fine.”

They settled on the living room floor around the coffee table. Sheepishly, Trunks slid the offending paper towards his father. There was a vague outline of a better part of the continent, pock-marked with wavy lines and arrowheads where there ought to have been rivers and mountains. The whole thing was divided into funny-shaped polygons that the teacher said had something to do with voting. Across the top of the page it read, in large, cartoonish letters, ‘Map Reading Worksheet.’ 

“I can read maps,” Vegeta said confidently. “What is it you have to do?”  


“‘Put a star next to West City’,” Trunks read. He pointed to the blank space where their metropolis should be. “Right?”  


“Correct.”

He drew a star that was large enough to blanket all of West City within its borders. “‘Label North, East, South and West on the compass rose.’ Hmm...”

“Do you remember what direction the mountains are from here?”  


“North?”

“Correct. So, if we’re this star and these triangles above it are the mountains...”

“Then North is up?”  


“Yes. That’s generally how maps are formatted. The top of the page being North, I mean.”  


“That only works if you know which edge of the page is the top,” Trunks pointed out with a frown.  


“Good point. What’s next?”

“‘Label all the providences by name’.”

Vegeta shook his head. “That’s... not something I would know.”

“Oh. Me either.”

“But I know how to find out,” he said, taking out his phone.   


A small hand slapped his knee. “Dad! I’m not supposed to use the Internet for this!”  


“...Why not?”  


“Because! That’s what my teacher said.”

“Then why ask me for assistance, if you’re expected to do this on your own?” Vegeta asked with a huff.

“I’m allowed to ask _you_ for help—I’m just not supposed to use the Internet.”

“That’s stupid,” he declared, voice raised in aggravation. “What good is it for me to simply tell you the answer, when you could learn how to look it up, instead?”

“I don’t know! I just do what they tell me to do!” Trunks replied, matching his tone.

The air crackled with their mutual frustration. Trunks watched as his father closed his eyes and took a series of carefully measured breaths. When he spoke again, his voice was warm and rich like melted chocolate.

“Blind submission is a dangerous habit, son. You’d do well to break it.” He gave Trunks’s shoulder a squeeze before returning to his phone. “And I don’t care what your teacher says, we’re looking this up.”

With the aid of a search engine, they made short work of the remaining questions. Besides the map, the rest was easy. A few subtraction problems here, a couple of vocabulary words there, a hand-print turkey that was somehow representative of the values which make up a good citizen.   


As soon as it became clear he was no longer needed, Vegeta retreated to the kitchen to continue his attempt at dinner. Trunks was almost sad to see him go. It wasn’t the same as doing homework with Mom, but it felt good to show his father how smart he was. And it felt even better to find things that Dad didn’t know. 

When Vegeta called him in to eat, Trunks looked over his ill-gotten answers one last time. Maybe Dad was right that it was better to know how to look stuff up, than to accept whatever somebody told him. That was the kind of smart his father was. Not Mom-smart, but _wise_.

Their dinner was edible, though not exactly luxurious. With everything on the table, Vegeta realized he had inadvertently chosen foods which were all rectangles. An amusing coincidence and one that Bulma would undoubtedly have blamed on too many years spent eating ration bars instead of ‘real food.’  


Trunks watched him eat with expectant eyes. The room was too quiet. Of course, this was the part of the day where Bulma asked everyone a thousand questions. Dinner without an interrogation just didn’t feel right. But what to ask?  


“What is it like?” Vegeta began, tipping a cube of microwaved rice out of its container and onto a plate.  


“What’s what like?”

“School.”

Trunks considered this a moment, giving his chin a sagacious stroke. “It’s okay,” he declared with a shrug.

“What exactly do you do there? They sit you in those little square desks and then what do you do?”

“Listen, mostly. Sometimes you get do fun stuff. And then there’s recess, where you get to run around outside. That’s pretty good.”

“What happens if you don’t listen?”

“Oh, you have to pay attention, or the teacher gets mad. But, not like yelling-mad. More like sad-mad.”

“Frustrated?”

“Yeah, frustrated.”

“What happens then?”

“Nothing, really. They just kinda look at you like this.” Trunks gave his best impression of what Vegeta assumed was either a frazzled elementary school teacher or a large-mouthed bass. “And they stand there til everyone feels guilty and stops talking.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah. I guess maybe if you do something _really_ bad, they call your mom and tell her.”

“I see.”

“What was it like when you went to school?”

“I didn’t go to school.”

“Oh,” Trunks said, dipping a fish stick into ponzu sauce, “How come?”

“Wasn’t really an option.”

“Then how did you learn stuff?”

“Largely through subconscious indoctrination.”

“What’s that?”

Vegeta struggled for the grade-school-sized words. “Learning in your sleep, more or less.”

“Whoa, cool. Can I do that instead of school?”

“No, it’s only for infants. Anything I had to learn after that, I learned by doing.”

“Like what?”

“How to fight. How to pilot a ship. How to take care of myself. Other things.”

“Space pirate stuff?”

“You could call it that.”

“You think I could learn how to do all that stuff?”

“Yes.” Sometimes he dreamt about them purging planets together. Those nights he woke with a pain in his chest that lasted for hours. “But, I’m glad you don’t have have to.”

“How come?”

“I like you the way you are.”

Trunks tugged down his lower eyelid and groaned as if to say that was the corniest thing he’d ever heard. And he was probably right. Vegeta picked up their plates and stood to put them in the sink.

“Isn’t it time you took your bath?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Trunks answered. 

“Do you need help?”

“Dad, I’m six, not a baby.”

“Fine. Don’t drown.”

“I won’t.”

“Wait a minute,” he said, taking his phone from his pocket. “It’s your mother.”

The swipe of a finger across the screen and there was Bulma, draped in a white hotel bathrobe, her hair twisted up in a matching towel. She looked ethereal, reclining against a throne of pillows like a priestess in bleached terrycloth.

“Did you join a cult?” Vegeta asked.

“Joke all you want, I just took a two-hour-long bubble bath while cleaning out the minibar. I’m untouchable.”

“Very nice.”

“Can I talk to Trunks?”

“That depends. Are you drunk?”

“Mildly tipsy.”

“Then all right.” He passed the phone off to his son and returned to the dishes.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hiya, kiddo! How’s it going?”

“Fine.”

“Did you do your homework?”  


“Yeah.”  


“What’d’ya have for dinner?”

“...Fish,” Trunks answered, a comfortable half-truth.

“That’s nice. Everything else okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Am I only gonna get one-word answers tonight?”

There was a ripple in air, a sudden shift in Trunks’s _ki_. Vegeta turned. One look at his son and he understood: the reality of Bulma’s absence was hitting him hard. It was one thing to know she wasn’t coming home tonight, it was another to hold the incontrovertible proof of this fact in his hands. Trunks’s face scrunched and warped around these uncomfortable realizations.

“Oh, baby, it’s okay. Don’t cry,” Bulma was saying.

Ironic, considering how many times she’d told Vegeta that saying ‘don’t cry’ only made her cry harder. The reaction appeared to be hereditary; big, round tears were welling up in the corner of Trunks’s eyes. From the sound of Bulma’s voice, she wasn’t too far behind.

“Don’t worry, okay? I’ll be home in a few days. I’ll come home tomorrow, if you want me to.”

Trunks shook his head, trying to look determined.

“I think it’s time you got ready for bed, son,” Vegeta said, taking the phone out of Trunks’s hands. “Say good night and go get cleaned up.”

“Night, Mom,” he mumbled.

“Good night, sweetheart. I love you.”

“Love you.”  


Bulma waited until Vegeta’s face appeared on screen. “Is he gone?”

“Yes.”

“Shit,” she said, wiping away tears with the edge of her hand. “This is so hard. I just have to, like, stay home with him forever until I die, I guess. I don’t think I can do this again.”

“The more you do it, the easier it gets.”

She had a particular way of smiling at him when he talked like that. As if whatever he’d said was the saddest thing she’d ever heard. It was one of Bulma’s more incredible and devastating super powers: she took the ordinary facts of his life and made him realize their tragedy. 

“Did you really make fish for dinner?” she asked after a moment.   


“Of a sort.”  


“Let me guess: fish sticks?”

“Yes.”

Vegeta could still see her smile, no matter how she tried to hide it. 

“Please tell me he ate _some_ kind of vegetable.”

“There were carrot sticks.”

“I guess that counts. Okay, I’m gonna go to sleep before I make myself any sadder. And by ‘go to sleep’, I mean I’m gonna order room service and watch TV for three hours while eating pizza in bed.”

“Don’t forget to have _some_ kind of vegetable.”

“I hate you so much,” she said in a tone that meant the precise opposite. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

And with that, she hung up.

The hours between dinner and sleep were, in Vegeta’s opinion, the worst part of the day. They were an enigma, a perennial blank spot on the agenda. Even after the better part of a decade, he struggled to fill the void. It wasn’t like space. In space, there was nothing to do, so it was simple enough to do nothing. On Earth, there was too much to do and no real reason to do any one thing over another. A frightening paradox.  


And so, from seven-thirty to ten-thirty, every day, Vegeta practiced various terrestrial forms of doing nothing. Some days, it was television. Some days, books. If Bulma was around, they talked, or amicably enjoyed each other’s silence. Sometimes he would scavenge spare parts from her lab and cobble together little bots that didn’t do much nor last very long. Some days, he sat and stared at the walls, until he finally gave in and returned to the Gravity Room.

Today was a book day, though not a very successful one. In the time it took Trunks to bathe and dress and brush his teeth, Vegeta had only managed to read the same paragraph thrice and hadn’t absorbed a word of it. There were still another two hours of nothing to go.

“Dad?”

“Mm?”

“I’m gonna go to bed now.”

“Mm.”

Trunks hesitated in the doorway, shifting from one foot to the other. Thirty seconds passed. A minute. Two. The boy didn’t move.

“Well?” Vegeta asked, turning a page more for effect than necessity.

“Can...Can you tuck me in?”  


“If I do, will you promise to stay there? No getting up in the middle of the night and pestering me?”

“…Promise.”

“All right, then.”

There was another Earth-based phenomenon that Vegeta didn’t understand; at six-years-old, he would have given anything to have his own sleeping quarters, away from the sights and sounds and smells of others. For all the rooms this house had, they could all live separately and go weeks without ever having to see one another. So, why did they sometimes end up three to a bed?

Maybe Trunk’s room was too stimulating for sleep. It was a silly sort of place, full of race cars and robots and plastic dinosaurs. Even the sheets had rocket ships on them. As soon as Trunks was comfortably situated in bed, Vegeta pulled the covers over him and stood back, unsure what else was required.  


“Can you sit down?” Trunks asked, shifting his legs to make space. “Just for a minute?”  


He complied. He supposed he should say something about the tears and the phone call, but he couldn’t fathom what.  


“Dad?”

“Hm?”

“How old were you when your mom died?”

“What?” 

“Mom told me your parents died when you were little, so, I was just wondering how old you were when your mom died.”

Whatever he had been expecting to be asked, it certainly wasn’t _that_.

“Uh…” he rubbed his face with his hands and tried to ignore the anxiety creeping across his skin. “I don’t know, exactly. I suppose I was probably around your age. But the last time I saw her was a few years before that.”

“Oh.” Trunks twisted the top edge of the sheets in his hands. “Do you miss her?”

He hadn’t thought about his mother in years. Decades. He could no longer picture her face, but he still remembered her smell—like cedar and spice—and the sound of her voice.

_“This is the last time we see each other, my son.”_  


Fuck.  


He took a deep breath and blew it out his cheeks. Did he miss her? 

“Not really,” he said. “It was a long time ago.”

“Oh.”  


“Your mother didn’t die,” Vegeta pointed out, voice tinged with anger, annoyed at having been made vulnerable.  


“But she’s gonna die some day, right?”

“Not for many, many years.”

“I know,” Trunks said. “But if I miss her so much now, maybe I should start practicing for when she does die.”  


“…You’re a strange kid, you know that?”

“Yeah, Mom says that a lot.”

“You’re allowed to miss your mother,” Vegeta said. “It’s a good thing. It means she’s worth remembering.”

Trunks nodded solemnly. He reached under his pillow and drew out a tattered stuffed animal—a monkey, which had been a gag gift from one of Bulma’s idiot friends—and clutched it to his chest. It was a favorite in his infancy and now it only made special appearances at bedtime. Vegeta leaned over and turned off the lamp.

“Dad?”  


“Yes?”

“Are you sad that Mom’s not here?”  


“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I know she’s coming back. And that she’s doing something she enjoys. Which hopefully means that when she does come back, she’ll be a little less…” Bitchy. “Easily aggravated.”  


“That’d be good.”  


Trunks’s hair was soft, like his mother’s. “Now, go to sleep. I’ll wake you in the morning.”

“Okay,” he said with a yawn. “Night, Dad.”

“Goodnight, son.”

“I love you.”

Vegeta couldn’t bring himself to respond, but he stayed, smoothing his hand over Trunks’s hair until he was certain he was asleep. Even then, he remained. In the amber glow of the nightlight, his boy was beautiful.

His boy. 

He always felt Trunks was more Bulma’s son, than his. He looked like her. Talked like her. She had done the majority of the work to raise him. The two of them were Earthlings in a way he could never be. 

Even when it came to fighting, Vegeta saw nothing of himself there. Trunks’s raw talent already surpassed his own; he lacked only experience and training and those would come in time. His presence in his son’s life was largely irrelevant, as the dignity and power of Future Trunks had shown. Most of the time, he wondered of what use he could possibly be to this boy.

But then there were nights like tonight, where something in the way Trunks spoke or the thoughts which occurred to him felt deeply familiar. As if some small, quiet part of himself, which no one—not even Bulma—had ever seen, was growing and blossoming in the boy’s mind. On those nights, he _knew_ that Trunks was his son, felt it, right down to the very last molecule. And suddenly, being here with him seemed tremendously important, more important than anything else ever was or could ever hope to be.

When Vegeta finally looked at the clock, it was nearly eleven. He stood, took one more glance at his son, and went to bed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vegeta takes Trunks to school, the boys enjoy a movie night, and Bulma struggles to communicate.

Trunks liked mornings with his father. They were quiet, serene. He was never in a hurry the way Mom was—no scrambling at the last minute to change outfits, no rush to have one more cup of coffee, no getting into the hover-car only to realize they didn’t have the keys—just a steady progression from sleepy to awake, from pajamas to clothes, from hunger to breakfast, and so on, as if time was irrelevant.  


Maybe, Trunks supposed, time _was_ irrelevant to Vegeta. He didn’t work; he didn’t go to school; when the teacher asked Trunks what his father did for a living, all he could do was shrug. 

He looked across the breakfast table and wondered.

“Dad?” he asked around a mouthful of frozen waffles. “What do you do all day?”  


“What do you mean?”

“Like, _I_ go to school and _Mom_ goes to her lab, but, what do _you_ do?”  


“I train.”  


“All day?”  


“Mhm.”  


“Everyday?”  


“Most days.”

“Whoa. You must be _really_ strong.”  


His father took a sip of coffee and nodded.

“Are you the strongest person in the whole universe?”

“No, not in the whole universe.”  


“Could you be? Like, if you train enough?”

“…Probably not,” he admitted.  


“Why not?”

Vegeta shrugged. “Never seems to work out that way. Are you finished eating?”

Trunks stuffed two and half waffles into his mouth—a personal best. “Fo way d’yuh do ih?”  


“Try that again without food in your mouth.”

Swallowing two-point-five waffles was tricky, but he managed. “So, why do you do it?”

“Do what?”  


“Why keep training if you can’t be the best?” he asked, unaware of the profundity of his question.  


His father was quiet for a moment, then asked, “What else would I do?”

“I dunno—you could be a fire fighter or a doctor or something.”  


“No, thanks.”

“Why not? I think it’d be fun to be a fire fighter. You get to help people and stuff.”  


“You sound like your grandmother. Get your shoes on, so we can leave.”  


He slid off his chair to hunt for his sneakers. There was another thing about Dad, he never got mad about missing shoes or forgotten homework, even when it meant a ten minute delay.  


“You didn’t really answer my question,” Trunks protested, presenting his newly-shod feet for tying.

Vegeta knelt down and took hold of his son's shoelaces. “Are you ever going to be the smartest person in the universe?”  


“I dunno—maybe.”  


“Well, let’s say you couldn’t be, no matter how hard you tried. Would you still go to school?”  


“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Then there you have it.”  


Trunks wasn’t sure what he had, but he nodded all the same.  


Outside, the air was cool, crisp with the scent of autumn. In the rest of the city, the leaves had started to turn, but they never did at home—the lights from the compound were too bright. Just once, Trunks wished, it would be nice to let them change, to make a big leaf pile in the yard and dive into it, headfirst.   


His father was looking at him, expectantly. He made sure his backpack was zipped before slipping it onto his shoulders.   


“Ready,” he said.

They took off like a shot, punching holes through the clouds as they went. Now that he was getting older, his father didn't slow down for him anymore, or try to hold his hand. They flew, shoulder to shoulder, like equals. Below them, West City was gridlocked with rush hour traffic, a snarl of exhaust fumes, honking horns and anxiety. Up above, the atmosphere was just like his father, silent and calm.

With Bulma gone, Vegeta tried his best to maintain Trunks’s regular schedule. He made sure the boy woke up at the usual time, ate at the usual time, studied and bathed and slept at the usual time. It was easy enough—he’d spent most of his life following a strict routine. He found them simultaneously comforting and constricting, like a favorite pair of gloves long outgrown.  


Today was Friday and Friday night was movie night. While Vegeta didn’t find films tremendously compelling, he did enjoy the ritual of it. The making of the popcorn, the dimming of the lights, the excuse not to talk for approximately ninety minutes. With the house to themselves, Trunks was given free reign over their movie selection. His decision came with a warning.  


“Remember, if Mom asks, you have to say we watched a different movie,” he said, pulling the bowl of popcorn into his lap.  


“Why?”  


“Because I’m not supposed to watch this one.”

Vegeta’s eyes narrowed. “...Why?”  


“That’s what I wanna find out!”  


Logically, he knew this was the sort of moment where he should unquestioningly uphold Bulma’s rule and veto Trunks’s choice. As she would put it, he needed to be the adult. That was definitely what he _ought_ to do. On the other hand, _Shogun Assassin _sounded infinitely more interesting than any of the ‘kid-friendly’ drivel he was usually subjected to.

“Fine,” he said, “but if she figures out I’m lying, I’m telling her it was your idea.”  


“Deal!”  


“And about the candy stash.”  


“What? No fair! You promised you’d keep that a secret.”  


“Your mother’s a formidable creature. If I’m going to lie to her, I need good insurance.”  


Trunks was quiet as he weighed the value of an R-rated movie against fifteen pounds of contraband sweets. With his arms folded across his chest and his brow creased in thought, it was easy to see the Saiyan in him, even under that mop of lavender hair. It was a sight that always gave Vegeta a warm sensation in his chest, like whiskey on an empty stomach.

“Yeah, okay. It’s a deal,” his son declared, at last.  


“You’re certain?”  


“Yeah.”

“I should warn you, I’m a terrible liar.”

“That’s okay—I can always get more candy. Let’s just watch it.”  


He nodded and pressed ‘play’.

At first, there wasn’t much Vegeta could find objectionable. The script was lamentably choppy and flat. Nearly every person on screen wore an ill-fitting wig, the hairline of which was clearly visible beneath off-colored makeup. Perhaps Bulma had forbidden Trunks from watching this film precisely because it was terrible. Beyond that, it seemed fine.  


That is, it _seemed_ fine, until their hero was confronted by a female warrior who was, inexplicably, topless. Vegeta put one hand over Trunks’s face, the other scrambling for the remote.  


“Close your eyes.”  


“Dad!”

“We’re skipping this part.”

“I know what boobs look like, sheesh.”

“I don’t care. We’re skipping this.”

For all of her sex appeal, the bare breasted sword-maiden didn’t last long. One slice across the back and down she went, only to be replaced by a never-ending rotation of murderous brigands. Their hero, it seemed, was less of an assassin and more of a one-man killing machine. A pity, Vegeta thought, he’d been hoping for something more understated, if not more convincing.  


The fighting, if one could call it that, had more in common with clowning than any actual combat techniques, though people did continue to lose limbs in startling and original ways, every slice accompanied by a torrential spray of blood, the same bright color as an emergency siren.

“That is not what happens when you take somebody’s arm off,” Vegeta said with a roll of his eyes.  “This is the most unrealistic thing I’ve ever seen.”  


“Wha’d’ya mean?” Trunks asked around a mouthful of popcorn. “Don’t they bleed?”  


“Of course they bleed, but not...” He mimed a fountain-like spurt in Trunks’s direction. “Blood isn’t pressurized. It simply... flows.”  


“How do you know? Have you ever cut anybody’s arm off before?”  


“Not with a sword.”

“Then how?”  


This was bait. For the last few months, Trunks had grown increasingly interested in tales of gore and viscera. It was only natural, considering his heritage; Vegeta had had similar fascination at that age.  


“Blasted them off. Or ripped them off,” he answered.  


“Whoa, you ripped off somebody’s arm? Like, with your bare hands?”

He hesitated. Bulma would object to this line of questioning. Then again, Bulma wasn’t here.  


“Arms, legs, heads, you name it.”

“Whoa, gross.”  


“It is fairly gross. But I have never, _ever_ seen anybody turn into a walking spray can,” he said, gesturing to the flailing, armless ninja on-screen.

“What did you do with the arms?”

“What?”

“After you pull somebody’s arm off, what did you do with it? Do you, like,” Trunks flopped a limp hand at him. “wave it in their face or something? You know, like a puppet?”  


Vegeta couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so hard about something so awful. Who was this child and how had he downloaded Raditz’s sense of humor?  


“No, I did not do anything like that,” he said once he could breathe again.  


Trunks nodded, as if taking mental notes for the future. On screen, their hero was now completely out-numbered. With a yawn, Trunks sprawled across the couch, leaning against his father’s side. 

“What’s the most people you ever fought at once?”

“A lot. Maybe a hundred.” He rescued the popcorn bowl from falling and set it on the coffee table. “I didn’t stop to count.”  


“So, were you kinda like the Shogun Assassin? Like, the hero and stuff?”  


“Uh—I suppose in my mind, I was the hero. Probably not to the people I killed, though.”

“Wha’d’ya mean?”  


“Well,” he began, pointing out one of their hero’s many assailants, a snaggletoothed knife-thrower with lamentable aim. 

“Take him, for instance. He’s a person. He wakes up, he gets dressed, he eats food, he probably has friends or a family. They could make a whole movie completely about him, and it would be a tragedy, because I think he’s about to get his head chopped off… My point is, in his movie, he’d be the hero, but in this one, he’s a villain. And not even a good enough villain to get a name or to live long enough for me to finish talking about him.”  


Trunks was quiet for a while, serious. As he watched him twirl a lock of hair around one finger, Vegeta worried his metaphor had been too abstruse for a six-year-old. Bulma always said he talked in riddles. Meanwhile, on screen, their hero was busy slicing his way out of peril.

“So... how do you know whose movie you’re in?” Trunks asked.

He smiled at that. “You don’t. Or, rather, everyone is in each other’s movies simultaneously. You have to find a balance between being your own hero without being someone else’s villain.”

“That sounds hard,” Trunks lamented with a frown.

“It is hard. But... that’s why I don’t rip people’s arms off anymore. Unless they try to do it to me, first.”

“Yeah, then it’s okay,” the boy agreed with a solemn nod.

“Or if anyone tried to hurt you or your mother.”

“And, if anyone tries to hurt you,” Trunks said, crawling into his father’s lap. “I’ll rip their arms off for you.”

Of all the kind and tender things his son had ever said to him, that one warmed his heart the most. Trunks rested his head against the arm of the sofa, body draped across Vegeta’s legs. It was an absurd idea, really—this little creature dismembering an assailant on his behalf. He reached down to rub the back of his would-be protector.

By the time their hero had finally run out of ninjas to dispatch, it was nearly nine o’clock.

“Come on,” Vegeta said, giving the boy a nudge. “Time for bed.”

Trunks whined in protest, but whether he was opposed to the concept of bedtime or simply against moving, he was too tired to articulate. It took a few attempts, but eventually Vegeta managed to get them both on their feet. They marched up the stairs, Trunks clinging to his father’s pant legs, sticking to him like a shadow.

Dressing a tired six-year-old was rather like dressing a robot with oppositional disorder. Any type of instruction was met with a sound of noncompliance. Arms went up or down at the wrong times, legs got tangled in pants, and somehow the head was always too large for the shirt-neck.

“Go brush your teeth,” Vegeta said once he’d gotten Trunks more or less into his pajamas.

“Meh,” said Trunks, and meant it.

“Brush your teeth or I’ll brush them for you, your choice."

Teeth were brushed. A face was washed. A child was tucked into bed, mad at the gross injustices enacted upon his overly-sleepy personage. He had no words of goodnight for his tormentor as he snuggled down amongst the sheets. His tormentor didn’t mind, he simply turned off the light and shut the door.

The soft smile which had decorated Vegeta’s face for the last hour faded as soon as he stepped into his room. There, on the nightstand, was his cellphone, still plugged in from the night before. Instinctively, he patted his pockets, as if hoping it could somehow be in both places at once. It wasn’t, of course, which could only mean he had been without it all day.

“Fuck.”

He picked it up to assess the damage. There were twenty-one missed calls, two voicemails and a barrage of increasingly expletive-rich text messages. The weight of his own stupidity was crushing.

While he was debating the relative merits of calling her back versus disappearing forever, the screen lit up with yet another incoming call. He closed his eyes, took a breath, and answered.

Everything was probably fine. 

No, everything _was_ fine. It had to be. Because if it wasn’t, Bulma was fairly certain she would drop dead. Drop dead, or murder him. Maybe both.

On the twenty-second call, the Prince of All Assholes finally decided to answer.  


“Yes?” he asked. Casually, as if he wasn’t writing his own death warrant.  


“What the fuck?!” Bulma spat, “Where the fuck have you been?”  


“At home.”

“Then why didn’t you answer the phone? I’ve been calling for the last three fucking hours!”

“I left it upstairs.”  


“Well, that’s pretty goddamn irresponsible, don’t you think? Especially considering that whole fucking conversation we had before I left about how you needed to answer my calls.”  


“Agreed.”  


“This is exactly the kind of shit I was talking about the other day. You act like I’m the bad guy for not trusting you more, then anytime I ask you to do something, you flake out on me. Sometimes, I swear—“  


“Did you want something or did you call simply to berate me?”  


“Yeah, I wanted to talk to my son.”  


“He’s asleep.”  


“I know he’s asleep—that’s why I called you three hours ago!”

“You’re angry,” Vegeta concluded with a frown.

“Wow. Good job, genius. I’m fucking _furious_.”  


“It was a mistake. I wasn’t purposefully ignoring you. We were watching a movie and I forgot.”

“And that’s supposed to make it okay?”

“I didn’t say that.” 

Vegeta looked away. She watched the screen as his jaw clenched and unclenched. She waited.

“Did you at least enjoy yourself today?” he asked. His tone was soft, apologetic. “Excluding the time spent trying to contact me.”  


“Yeah, I guess so,” Bulma admitted with a sigh. “I saw a pool filter shaped like an animatronic flamingo that also mixes drinks.”

“…I don’t know what half of those words mean in this context.”  


“I’ll send you a video—it’s pretty hilarious. There was also an automatic cat grooming machine that’s so terrifying-looking, I’m pretty sure Scratch would shit if it came after him with a hair brush. Imagine a steam-roller and an iron maiden had a baby with a car wash.”

She caught the faintest hint of a smirk on his lips. 

“Is this a festival for bad inventions?” he asked.  


“Unintentionally, yes. There’s also cool stuff, but the stupid stuff is definitely the best part. What movie did you guys watch?”  


“I don’t remember what it was called. There was a very large lizard with a personal vendetta against tall buildings.”

“Nice,” she said, “Hey… I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

He shrugged. “I should have had my phone with me. I’ll have him call you when he wakes up, if you wish.”  


“I’d like that. How—how have you two been getting along?”

He smirked properly this time. “He sure talks a lot, doesn’t he?”

“Oh, yes he does. And his chattiness is directly proportional to how tired you are or how much of a headache you have.”  


“I don’t mind. He said some very funny things to me tonight.”  


“Yeah? Like what?”  


“Nothing, just—he’s very amusing.”  


“Thank you,” she said with an emphatic nod. “I keep trying to tell people he’s hilarious and nobody listens to me. Did he tell you the one about the farting cat?”

“Ugh, no, he thankfully did not.”  


“It’s _very_ funny. Strong recommend.”

“You and I have different definitions of humor,” Vegeta reminded her.  


“Listen, the farting cat joke has universal appeal.”  


“I’ll take your word for it,” he said. “You should get some sleep. It must be after three there.”

She sighed, as if his saying so had made it true. “What time are you gonna call me tomorrow?”

“In twelve hours?”  


“Mph—there’s a panel I wanted to go to then. Can you make it noon my time?”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday. You want me to wake him up at six o’clock in the morning on a Saturday?”  


Bulma did not say ‘I wanted you to answer the phone three hours ago’, but she was thinking it very loudly.

“Whatever,” she said. “Just call me whenever and I’ll pick up.”  


Vegeta, likewise, did not say he was sorry, but he certainly looked as if he were.

“All right. I’m glad… you’re… having fun,” he said, lamely.  


“Thanks. It sounds like you guys are having fun, too.”  


“Mm.”  


“That’s good. It’s probably good for you two to have some time together.”  


“I agree.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” He was quiet again, lips shifting, as if there were words behind them struggling to get out. “Thank you for… not forcing your mother on me. I mean, for letting me—even though I…“ He shrugged.  


“Yeah, of course. Let’s… Let’s talk about this sometime when I’ve had more sleep, what do you say?”  


“All right. Goodnight.”  


“Night.”

The hotel bed was a giant marshmallow, soft and pliant and all hers. She fell into it, face first. This was one of the things she’d been looking forward to for weeks: sleeping diagonally, piling on the pillows, leaving the television on all night. No interruptions, no blanket thieves.

For the first time in three hours, Bulma could breathe again. Everything was fine. But, she’d known that all along, hadn’t she? If she questioned herself, really questioned, would she have sat around for three hours fuming, if she’d actually been concerned? No, probably not.

She rolled over and stared at the ceiling. If eight years ago, someone had told her she’d be lying here, feeling guilty for losing her temper at the crowned prince of tantrums, she never would have believed it. Then again, there was very little about her life now that she would have believed was possible eight years ago. And, if she was honest, really honest, there was very little she would change.

Bulma reached for the remote. With the comforting sounds of a sitcom laugh track as her lullaby, she fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone wondering how Scratch has lived for 30+ years, I present two theories:
> 
> 1) Scratch is an immortal, eldritch being  
or  
2) There have been a series of identical-looking cats over the years named, respectively: Scratch, Scratch 2: Electric Boogaloo, Scratch the Third, and Scratch IV: A New Hope.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Trunks is definitely NOT scared of the dark, Dr. Briefs offers some fatherly advice, and Bulma makes a big decision.

Trunks was not afraid of the dark. He was not afraid of the dark, or monsters under the bed, or the dentist. He wasn’t some baby anymore. He was a big kid, with big kid fears. Fears like, what if his room was teleported to another universe by accident? What if he sneezed so hard his nose fell off? 

What if he woke up in the middle of the night and he was all alone?  


There was no one upstairs—he had already checked every room twice. He crept down the stairs, clinging to the handrail like he was repelling down a mountain side. There was no one in the living room, or the study, or the kitchen, except for the cat, who thought anytime someone opened the fridge, it was to his benefit. Trunks scooped the puddle of black fluff into his arms.  


“Come on, Scratch, we’re gonna find Dad.”

Scratch was not terribly invested in this search. After a few seconds, he wriggled his way free and slunk off to do whatever it was cats did in the dark. Trunks was on his own.  


The grass in the yard was wet. It chilled his toes and soaked into the cuffs of his pajama pants. Nighttime at the compound was not like nighttime at other places—Goten told him so. In other places, there weren’t floodlights illuminating the buildings and walkways. In other places, you heard crickets or owls instead of the dull roar of generators. In other places, he’d have to wander through the dark woods to look for his parent. Trunks was glad he to be where he was.

Outside the Gravity Room, the red indicator light was illuminated. Mystery solved. He was still too short to reach the intercom; he could hover up to it, but he didn’t. If there was one thing that still made his father angry, _really_ angry, it was being interrupted when he was training. Trunks sat down on the concrete threshold and waited. And waited. And waited.

The door depressurized with a hiss, startling Trunks out of a doze. He turned to see his father, sweaty and flush-faced, glaring down at him.

“What’re you doing here?”

“I can’t sleep.”  


“So? Why’re you _here_—you want to freeze to death?”  


“I was looking for you,” he admitted.   


“Congratulations, you found me. Let’s go inside.”

They walked back to the house together in silence. Vegeta’s annoyance was palpable. He didn’t like surprises or interruptions or whining. When they made it upstairs, Vegeta paused in front of the door to his room.  


“Do you want me to tuck you in again?” he asked. “Would that help you sleep?”

Trunks chewed his thumbnail, debating.  


“Well?”  


“Can—can I sleep in your room?”  


His father folded his arms against his chest. “What’s wrong with yours?”

“Nothing, but…”   


Trunks was _not_ going to cry. He wasn’t a baby anymore. He was a big boy, who slept in his own bed and wasn’t afraid of the dark. If there were any monsters under the bed—which there weren’t—he would rip their arms off.

Vegeta opened his door with a sigh. 

“Fine. But go wash your feet off, first. I don’t want you getting grass in my sheets.”

“Wh-where are you going?”

“To take a shower,” Vegeta said and when his son frowned, he added, “I’ll be five minutes.”  


His father’s room was a strange place, small and white and boring. There was no art on the walls, no television. No video games, no computer, no _stuff_. There was no chair in the corner piled with half-worn clothes. There was nothing on the nightstand besides a lamp, his cellphone and book about whatever ‘fluid mechanics’ was. No wonder he was always sleeping in Mom’s room.

Trunks rubbed the grass off his feet against the carpet and climbed into bed. It was a little bigger than his own, though not by much. He slipped beneath the covers and buried his face in a pillow that smelled more like Dad than Dad did.

After five very long minutes, Vegeta returned. Trunks watched him as he dressed, as he gave his hair a vigorous scrub with a towel, as he checked his phone one last time, as he pulled back the blankets.  


“Move over,” he commanded.  


“Mom says you’ll get sick if you go to bed with wet hair.”

“I don’t have the same kind of hair as you and your mother. Scoot.”

“So?” Trunks asked, sliding to the far side of the bed. “It gets wet, doesn’t it?”  


Vegeta sank into the mattress. “It dries very quickly. Feel it.”  


His father’s hair was bristly, almost sharp, like petting a dog the wrong way. It didn’t really feel like hair. But whatever it was, it was not especially wet.  


“Weird.”

His father’s body was a topographical map, full of ridges and divots. Stripes and blobs and arches, some silvery; some pinkish; some dark, like bruised peaches.  


“Do they hurt?”

“Does what hurt?”  


Trunks leaned forward and poked one of the scars across his father’s bicep, tracing it’s jagged path. It took Vegeta a moment to realize what he meant.  


“Not really. There’s one on my foot that bothers me sometimes.”  


“Can I see?”  


Vegeta straightened up a bit and drew his left leg out of the covers. He pointed to a smooth, V-shaped wedge between the base of his big toe and the rest of his foot. Trunks sat up on his knees and leaned over curiously.  


“Can I touch it?”

“Sure.”  


“It won’t hurt?”  


Vegeta shook his head.   


“That’s not really the part that hurts. These two metatarsals—the bones in my foot—were pushed too close together when it healed. If I walk a lot, or stand for a long time, they rub together, and that’s the painful part.”

“Gross. Can’t a doctor fix it?”  


“Probably. I never bothered to ask.”  


“How’d you hurt it?”

“Stepped on something I shouldn’t have stepped on.”  


“What’d you step on?”  


“I thought you came in here to sleep, not to ask me questions.” He slid his leg back under the sheets and switched off the lamp. “Now, lay down and close your eyes.”   


His father’s room was dark. Really dark. Can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face dark. He rolled over in the darkness and leaned his cheek against Vegeta’s shoulder. At least, if he could touch him, he would know he hadn't disappeared.  


“Dad?”  


“Mm?”  


“What would you do if you woke up and everyone in the whole world was gone?”  


“Gone where?”  


“I dunno, they’d just be gone. Like, the whole world is empty and you’re all alone.”  


“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“Yeah, but if it _did_, what would you do?”

“What would _you_ do?”  


“I asked first.”

A minute passed, then another. Tiny eternities in the darkness. Trunks listened to his father’s steady breathing, trying to guess whether or not he'd fallen asleep.  


“I’d try to find you,” he answered at last. “You and your mother.”

“How? You wouldn’t know where to look.”  


“I’d look everywhere.”  


“But what if you could never find us?”  


“I’d keep looking.”  


“Forever?”

“For as long as it takes."   


The bed creaked as Vegeta shifted. The shoulder on which Trunks had been resting moved out from under him. An arm looped around his shoulders and pulled him close. Trunks didn’t know if his father had ever hugged him before. He didn’t know if this counted as a hug, but it was close. It made him feel warm, cocooned against the dark. He curled against his father’s side and slept.

  


Never in the history of the world had anyone had a headache like the one Bulma had now. It was sharp, malevolent. The sunlight which poured into the hotel atrium struck her like a divine punishment. Or a railroad spike to the eye sockets. Squinting, she scanned the room until she spotted her father, sitting along the far wall, already enjoying his breakfast.

“Morning, Dad,” she said, taking a seat at his table.

“Morning, sweetheart.” Dr. Briefs took a bite and hummed. “Say what you like about this hotel, they make a mean stack of flapjacks.”  


“Do you know what you’d like?” the waitress asked, appearing so suddenly that Bulma nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Coffee,” she answered. “Massive, massive amounts of coffee.”  


“Anything else?”  


“Ask me after the coffee.”

“…Sure thing.”  


Bulma leaned her elbows on the table and rested her head in her hands. The dining room was filled with the clattering of plates and the rustling of silverware. She hoped that waitress understood what she’d meant by ‘massive amounts of coffee’.  


“Sleep all right?” her father asked.

“Sure, fine. Just not enough.”

“Everything okay at home?”

“Yup.”  


Dr. Briefs poured more syrup over his plate. “Like I was saying about this hotel, they make a good pancake, but the walls are pretty thin. I thought I heard some angry phone calls going on last night.”

She lifted her head and was about to reply when the waitress set a mug and french press of coffee on the table in front of her.

“Thanks,” she mumbled and promptly ordered three eggs, bacon and a side of hash browns. If it was going to be _this_ kind of morning, she might as well fuel up. 

Dr. Briefs waited patiently through her first cup of coffee.   


“So?”  


“It’s nothing.” The mug was hot in her hands. Too hot. She gripped it tightly, liking the sting. “I had a hard time getting a hold of you-know-who last night. I guess they were watching a movie in the living room and he left his phone upstairs or something and... _Ugh_—it just makes me so _mad_, because, before I left, we had this whole, big conversation about communication and his not answering the phone and—“  


She waved a frustrated hand in the air in lieu of words and poured herself another cup.

“Sounds like an innocent mistake to me. But, then again, I’ve been accused of being a little absent-minded, myself.”  


Absent-minded was putting it lightly. Panchy often said he’d lose his own head if she wasn’t around to keep track of it for him. Bulma leaned back to make room for the plates the waitress set before her. With a sigh, she sunk her fork into her hash browns.  


“I’m sure it was an accident. I don’t know. It’s just, lately, whenever he does something to piss me off, I instantly remember every shitty thing he’s ever done and I get mad about the whole sum total all over again.”  


Dr. Briefs nodded thoughtfully. “And what does he do?”

“What does he do to piss me off?” she asked, with a look that said she had a very long list.

“No, I mean, you get angry at him and how does he react? I remember when you all lived with us, the two of you used to go at each other like wild cats—yelling, slamming doors, cursing—is it still like that?”  


Bulma sighed. It hadn't seemed like it at the time, but those had been some _bad_ days. Now, when she thought about how they used to be, especially just after Trunks was born, it was like looking at a couple of strangers. Angry, spiteful strangers.  


“No, he—he’s a _lot_ better than he used to be. Like night and day, practically. And I’m better, too… most of the time. I don’t know. It’s ridiculous. It’s all this stuff from _years_ ago that I thought I was over, but then he’ll do something innocuous and I’ll use it as an excuse to start tearing open old wounds. I don’t know why; it’s like I can’t help it.”

“Sounds like you haven’t really forgiven him.”

“Well, he has done some pretty unforgivable things. Not even to me, just like, in general.”

“So don’t forgive him,” Dr. Briefs said with a shrug. “Move on. This isn’t the six-hundreds, you know—just because you two have a kid doesn’t mean you have to stay together.”

Bulma moved some egg whites from one side of her plate to the other. “No, I know, but…”

What could she say? She loved the bastard. And she was about ninety-seven-point-eight percent sure he loved her. He was stubborn and smart and passionate, and so was she. She loved what they had together, however nebulous it was. When it worked, it was beautiful.  


Dr. Briefs put his fork down and gave his daughter a serious look.

“Well, I’ll just say one last thing, and then I’ll shut up. I don’t know what all goes on between the two of you—and you don’t have to tell me—but I do know that you really care about each other. And say what you will about Vegeta, he doesn’t shy away from a challenge.”  


“Are you saying I’m a challenge?” she asked with a smirk.  


“We all are, sweetheart. Maybe I’m full of hot air here, seeing as how I lucked out and married the best woman in the world, but if you want to make it work—with anyone, not just with him—you can’t hold grudges against people. You have to learn to let shit go after you’ve dealt with it.”  


She nodded and poured the last of the French press into her mug.  


“And if there’s shit you can’t deal with… then let the whole thing go. Not just for your sake, but for your son’s. When he sees you two together, he’s learning what it means to love someone. Make sure you’re teaching him the right stuff.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” she admitted.  


“Like I said, this isn’t really my area of expertise. I just want you to be happy.”  


She reached across the table, took his hand and squeezed it. “Thank you.”

_Good ol’ Dad_, Bulma thought. However lost he seemed in his own little world, he always knew how to get straight to the heart of something, even hearts. As she crunched through her last strip of bacon, Bulma wondered if Trunks saw more of the good between her and Vegeta, or the bad. Maybe the fact she didn’t know spoke volumes on its own.  


“Welp, that’s your dose of parental guidance for the year, I think,” her father declared, tossing his napkin on the table. “Wha’d’ya say we head on over to the convention center? I want to have another look at those positron emitters.”

“Sounds good,” she said with a smile, because it did.  


The Technology Expo had its own, particular smell. Every convention Bulma had ever been to had a funk, but this one was unique. Nerd-sweat, cheap cologne, and processor dust. The smell hung low overhead, like a storm cloud. She probably would have ducked out anyway, even if her phone hadn’t started ringing, just to get a breath of fresh air.

Bulma backed into the crash-bar of the convention center’s emergency exit with the authoritative calm of someone who could walk straight into a government facility, take whatever they wanted, and walk right out again without any trouble or credentials. In fairness, she probably could do that, if she’d ever wanted to, but right now all she wanted was a semi-quiet place, preferably free of people, that didn’t involve going back to the hotel. This stairwell would just have to do.  


When she slid her finger across the bottom of her phone screen, she was greeted by the sight of Vegeta, shirtless, sprawled on his back in bed, one arm tucked behind his head. Seeing him everyday, it was easy to forget how attractive he was, but now, with four thousand miles and a screen in between them, he looked _delicious_.  


“Wow,” she said, “if I’d thought it was going to be _this_ kind of phone call, I would’ve packed an extra pair of panties in my purse.”  


He frowned and brought a finger to his lips.

“Look,” he said.

The camera shifted to the right. There, nestled against Vegeta’s shoulder, was Trunks, fast asleep. That pure, perfect, baby-sleep, like miniature Brahma dreaming the cosmos into existence.  


“This is the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Bulma whispered. “Where are you guys? In your room?”  


“Mhm.”  


She smirked at that. Vegeta had a thing about his room. He didn’t exactly forbid anyone from going in it, but he cherished his little bit of private space so much that he might as well have hung a ‘Do Not Enter’ sign on the door. It figured that Trunks would be the one to break down the defenses.

“How did it happen? Tell me everything.”

“Last night, after we... spoke, I went to the GR for a bit and when I came out he was camped in front of the door.”

“Okay, glossing over the part where you left a six year-old in the house unattended, that is very sweet.”  


“It was only for an hour,” he said with a scoff, “And he was sleep.”  


“Clearly he wasn’t asleep the whole time, or—“ She took a breath, remembering what her father had said that morning. “Never mind. We’re glossing over it.”  


A series of small, tired grunts came from off-screen. Vegeta turned the phone again to capture Trunks’s frowning, fussy return to consciousness.  


“Hi, Trunks,” Bulma cooed. “Good morning, sunshine!”

“...Mommy?”

“Hi, baby.”  


“Mommy!” he shouted, reaching for the phone with eager hands. He propped it on his chest and beamed at her. The look on his face was her number one favorite sight in the whole universe.

“How’s it going? I’m sorry I didn’t get to talk to you last night. Did you have a good time?”

He nodded. “We watched a movie.”

“Yeah, I heard. Did you like to see the big lizard stomp around on everything?”  


“Yeah...” Trunks cast a look up at his father as if hoping to confirm that fact.  


“And you got to sleep in Daddy’s bed, too—that must be pretty exciting. You know, even _I_ don’t get to sleep in there.”  


“I don’t know why you both have this weird obsession with my room,” Vegeta mumbled from off-screen.  


“Did you sleep okay, kiddo?”  


“Mhm.” The camera tilted to one side as Trunks took one hand to rub his eyes. “I miss you.”  


“I miss you, too. But it’s nice you have your Dad there, yeah? And you know, you can always go to him for anything, right? All the time, not just when I’m gone. That’s what he’s there for.”

“Yeah.” He frowned. “It’s not the same as you, though.”  


Bulma could hear Vegeta chuckle.  


“Sorry,” said Trunks. 

“Don’t be. Your mother’s a lot better at most things than I am.”  


“Not at flying. Or punching.”

“That’s true. But only by a slim margin.”  


The ease of their rapport brought a smile to her face. It was funny what forty-eight hours could do; she had never seen them so comfortable with each other.

“So, what are you two handsome guys up to today?” she asked.

“Laundry.”  


“Let’s go swimming!”  


“It’s too cold to go swimming.”

“Let’s go somewhere that’s not cold, then.”  


“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”  


“No leaving the city, please,” Bulma said. “And don’t worry about the laundry—I’ll do it when I get back. You two go have fun.”  


“You’re coming home tomorrow, right?” asked Trunks.

“You got it, kid. I’ll be home by dinnertime at the latest.”

“I hope you come home sooner,” he said, with a tone that implied he’d rather not face another one of Vegeta’s attempts at cooking.

“Okay, before dinnertime, then,” she said with a smile. “Hand me back to Dad.”

Vegeta’s expression was sleepy and bemused and so very, _very_ delicious. Maybe this was her ovaries talking, but fatherhood looked good on him.

“Hey. Thanks for calling.”

“Mhm.”

“I mean it, thank you.”

“Of course.”

“If I call you again at dinnertime, will you answer the phone?”

“Eh…” he said, face scrunching with doubt.

Bulma pressed her lips together and shook her head. And he called Trunks a brat. They stared at one another, both trying desperately not to smile.

“You are so lucky there’s a child present, because I have some _words_ for you.”

He smirked. “Why don’t you call me after bedtime and tell me all about it?”

“You guys are weird,” Trunks declared.

The image onscreen jostled. Vegeta grunted and said, “Your son is stepping on me.”

“I have to go to the bathroom! You’re in the way.”

She giggled. When was the last time she’d giggled?

“Okay, well, I’ll let you two go. Enjoy your Saturday; I’m off to see a chicken play chess against a refrigerator.”

“Bye, Mom!” called Trunks from somewhere in the distance.

“I hope the chicken wins,” Vegeta said and hung up.

Bulma lingered in the stairwell for a moment, holding her phone to her chest and smiling. This was the shit—the _good_ shit—that made all the other shit worthwhile. She thought again about what her father had said at breakfast. About forgiving and, well, not _forgetting_, exactly, but letting go. Making room for them to grow, together.

“Okay,” she said, her voice tinny and echoing in the stairwell. “Okay.”

And with that, she turned and walked back onto the show floor.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trunks and Vegeta take a break from training to discuss conquering the universe, Bulma returns home and the Briefs have an unexpected houseguest.

“Again.”

The boy’s fist landed against his hand with a dull thwack. It was disappointing, weak—all bark and no bite. Vegeta shook his head.  


“Again,” he said.

And again the small fist flew. 

“Again,” he repeated.   


And again it went.  


“Again.”  


This time, the fist merely hovered at Trunk’s side.   


“I’ve it done it hundred times already!”  


“No, you’ve done it zero times. You keep locking your elbow and stopping short,” he explained. “Now, hit me and do it right for once. I know you can.”  


With a growl of frustration, Trunks took another swing, harder this time, full of all the rage his little body could muster. It was a punch a father could be proud of: he kept his elbow loose; he followed through; when it collided with Vegeta’s palm, there was actually some force behind it.

“Good. Now, the other side.”  


“Ugh,” said Trunks, flopping onto the Gravity Room floor with a dramatic huff. “This is _boring_.”  


They were due for a break; a glance at the clock said they’d been at it for nearly three hours. Vegeta joined him on the floor, pulling his knees to his chest until he felt his lower-back click into place. He relaxed against the linoleum.  


“Five minutes, then you’re going to show me your straight left.”  


Trunks made a sound as if he’d just been asked to sort all the world’s loose change in an hour.  


“You’re the one who said you wanted to train with me.”  


“I meant the fun kind of training.”  


“Tch.”  


Humanity’s favorite word was ‘fun’. _That sounds like fun. Did you have fun? Come on, it’ll be fun!_ After all these years, he still wasn’t sure what they meant by it. It was similar to amusement, but stronger. Like entertainment, but not so passive.  


“What, exactly, qualifies as ‘the fun kind of training’?” he asked.  


“You know, the _fun_ kind.”  


He turned his head to look at his son, hoping to communicate through the frown on his face that he most certainly did _not_ know. Trunks rolled over onto his stomach and sighed.  


“Like, the kind where we get to fly around and blast stuff. Or, where I try to hit you and you try to hit me and you have to guess what the other person’s gonna do first, so you can block it.”  


“Sparring.”  


“Yeah, sparring.”  


“I don’t want you sparring if you can’t throw a punch correctly. Then you’re just practicing bad habits.”  


Trunks folded his hands under his chin and frowned. “I can do it right when it counts.”  


“I want you to get in the habit of doing it right all the time. That way, when it really counts, you won’t have to think about it.”  


When it really counts. Would there ever come a time when Trunks would need to fight—really fight? When his life would depend on it? He turned back to stare at the high, domed ceiling of the Gravity Room. Somewhere up above, a fluorescent was on its last legs, flickering just enough to be obnoxious. Vegeta closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“All right,” he conceded, pushing himself onto his feet. “Show me ten, good, straight punches—five on each side—then we’ll move on.”  


“I’m hungry. Can we have lunch instead?”

In moments like this, Vegeta understood why Nappa had gone bald so young.  


“Fine. But I still want to see those punches first. Proper form this time.”  


Was there ever a Saiyan born—half-breed or otherwise—who wasn’t best motivated by food? After ten, perfect, unimpeachable hits, they started back to the house. Vegeta put his hand on his son’s head as they walked, which was as close to praise as he dared to get.   


It was infuriating; Trunks had all the potential and none of the motivation. Training to him wasn’t work, or a necessity for survival, it was more like a game. Something _fun_ to do. Vegeta had never played games as a child. At least, not ones that would be met with general approval. Even now, he did few things for amusement, most things for satisfaction, a sense of completion, pride in a job well-done. He struggled to translate that into something Trunks would understand.  


“Son,” he asked about half-way through his fifth peanut butter and jelly sandwich, “what is it you want to do with your life?”  


“Wuddya mean?”

The potato chip bag crinkled. Trunks pried his own sandwich apart and laid chips across the red-brown, peanut-butter-jelly swirls with the precision of an architect. He put the two halves back together, gave the whole thing a good smush, and proceeded to eat. Vegeta was, in equal measures, horrified and intrigued.  


“What do you want to do with your life?” he repeated. “Isn’t there something you‘re hoping to accomplish?”  


“You mean, like, what do I wanna be when I grow up?”  


“Something like that.”  


The boy took a few, thoughtful bites of his sandwich, then shrugged. “I dunno. I usually just say ‘scientist’, ‘cause that’s what Mom wants me to say.”  


“What is it that you actually want to do?”  


Trunks put down his sandwich to give another, more determined, shrug.  


“I don’t hafta decide now, do I?”

“No.”  


“What did you wanna be? I mean, when you were a kid.”  


“King of the universe,” Vegeta said and licked a blob jelly off the side of his hand.  


“Whoa. Like, the whole thing?”

“Mhm.”  


“…Were you ever?”

“Was I ever King of the Whole Universe?” he asked with a snort. “No, I was not.”

“Oh. Do you still wanna be?”  


Vegeta tossed his head side to side, indecisively. “Sometimes.”

“So, why aren’t you?”  


This boy had a knack for loaded questions. 

“Hmph. I’m… I’m not—I don’t think it’s going to happen.”  


“Oh.”  


“You could be, though.”  


“Me?”

“Mhm. You’re very smart. You have the potential to become a great warrior. In my experience, those are the two main requirements.”   


That, he supposed, and the will to dominate. Maybe a bit of dumb luck.

Trunks lifted his chin as if trying the crown on for size. Vegeta could almost picture it, his son, Conqueror of Worlds, Master of the Known Cosmos. What sort of a ruler would he be? Merciful, no doubt. Probably to a fault. Or, perhaps, if he never learned discipline, frivolous and debauched. That was a frightening prospect. He knew all too well what happened when absolute power was combined with a love of ‘fun and games’—had seen it, first hand.  


“Nah, I wouldn’t wanna be King,” Trunks declared, his voice shaking Vegeta from his thoughts.  


“No?”  


“Nuh-uh. Too much work.” He crunched a potato chip, as if to reaffirm his commitment to leisure.  


“How so?”  


“Well, if you’re king, then everybody comes to you with their problems. Not just like a couple problems. Like, _all_ the problems. And it’s your job to make everybody happy. Everybody in the _whole universe!_ That sounds like too much work to me.”  


“Fair point. Though most people who try to rule the universe typically aren’t very interested in making sure everyone is happy.”

“That’s dumb. That’s what a king’s supposed to do.”  


“Is it?”  


“Yeah, duh. Nobody wants a mean king.”  


“People don’t really get a choice about who’s king, that’s sort of the point.”  


“Yeah-huh,” Trunks insisted with an expression that asked which one of them had gotten an ‘A’ in social studies. “In a constitudeinal monarchy, sometimes you can vote for who’s king.”

“Constitutional,” he corrected.  


“Yeah. And if he’s a bad king, then people can vote to make him not the king anymore.”  


“That’s how it works to be King of _Earth_. That’s not really how it works to rule the universe.”  


“How do you know, if you’ve never even _been_ King of the Universe?”

“Because I... worked for the last one.”  


That was one way to put it. It sounded better than ‘enslaved by’ or ‘killed for’ or ‘died trying to usurp’.  


“Whoa, really?”  


Vegeta nodded.  


“Doing space pirate stuff?”  


“Sure.”

“And is he a good king or a bad one?”  


“He isn’t anything anymore. He’s dead.”

He hadn’t meant that to sound as hateful as it did. Then again, this wasn’t exactly how he’d meant for this conversation to go, either. He took a breath. The kitchen table was solid and cool beneath his palms.  


“So… who’s the king now?”  


“What?”  


“If the one you’re talking about is dead, who’s the new king?”  


“Good question. I don’t know.”  


An amusing thought, really. Here he was, sitting at his kitchen table, eating lunch with his son, with no idea whatsoever as to what sort of creature considered itself ruler of the universe. Not a clue as to who might be buying and selling their world, marketing it as a fixer-upper with a minor infestation of semi-intelligent life and decent views.  


“Well,” said Trunks, wiping potato chip grease down the front of his shirt. “If we get to vote for the new king, I’ll vote for you.”  


“You will?”  


“Mhm. I think you’d be a good king.”  


He couldn’t help but smile at that, though he wasn’t sure he agreed. Wasn’t sure ‘good’ and ‘bad’ were the sort of adjectives that could be applied to rulers—maybe not even to people in general. They were too complicated, too vague. Arbitrary and variable. The words and the people. But that was just semantics, as Bulma would say.  


Years ago, when he had first come to Earth, she used to goad him into such debates, mostly, she confessed later, as an excuse to talk to him. They’d had a conversation once, very much like this one, about what made a king and what ought to. What was the point, she’d wanted to know, of taking over the galaxy, if it meant making an enemy of everyone in the process?

He had only been here a month; the sting of defeat had still been fresh. He’d felt robbed of so many things: his vengeance—against Frieza, against Kakarotte—his home, his birthright, his one chance at universal domination, his right to die and to stay dead.

_What do I care if I have enemies? _he’d said,_ I should rather be feared than liked._

Had she rolled her eyes at him? Or was that just how he liked to imagine her? Either way, there was no forgetting the look on her face. Haughty. Austere. Regal.  


_I’d rather be loved than feared._

What a profoundly, stupidly human sentiment.

“Dad? Can we go back to training now? I promise I’ll do my katas right this time.”

It took a moment to bring himself back to the present. Always did.  


“All right,” he said, “Let’s go.”

  


By Sunday, everyone was eager for Bulma’s return, most especially Vegeta. Children, it turned out, had no ‘off’ button. No mute, no escape. With no school and the whole co-sleeping thing, father and son had spent roughly thirty of the last thirty-six hours within five feet of one another. Thirty chatty, exhausting hours. It was little wonder Bulma had such a crippling caffeine addiction, if this was how she spent her weekends.

Vegeta had been curt and despondent all morning, so much so that, when he said he locked himself in his room and said didn’t want to be disturbed for the next three hours unless it was an actual, literal emergency, Trunks didn’t bother to argue. He didn’t exactly mind, either. It gave him time for all those noble, weekend pursuits of the young: television, tree climbing, video games, throwing rocks at other rocks, brazenly raiding the candy stash one more time before Mom came home.  


He was sitting on top of the fridge, fishing in the cabinet above for a package of peanut butter cups, when he felt he was being watched. He turned to look, but no one was there. Still, the feeling persisted. A strange feeling, hard to describe. Not like sensing someone’s _ki_. Just something small and vague and unsettling.  


Slipping from his perch, he unwrapped his chocolate and cast a nervous glance around the kitchen. There, along the kitchen island, something moved. Something quick and shadow-like that sent a shiver up his spine and had him zipping through the house, to the closed door he was not supposed to knock on until after three o’clock.  


“Dad?”

It took a good minute for the door to open and when it did, Vegeta looked at his son with the same expression that had been for so many the last thing they had ever seen.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Is the house on fire?”

“No.”  


“Then why are you bothering me?”

“I need your help—“

“Ask me in twenty minutes.”  


“But—“  


“I said scram.”  


“There’s something in the house!”  


“Define ‘something’,” Vegeta said, eyes narrowing.

“I don’t know. It’s in the kitchen. I heard noises and I tried to look, but...” he trailed off, not wanting to put his cowardice into words. 

Vegeta sighed. He was about to profess his profound indifference to his son’s fears, when a loud clatter rang out downstairs. Whatever it was, it definitely sounded like _something_.

Father and son approached the threshold of the kitchen with full Saiyan bravado. They were a handsome and formidable-looking pair and would certainly have terrified any intruder or ghoul, had there been one to terrify. As it was, there was not. No burglar, no ghost, just Scratch on the floor among an assortment of broken dishes, which had been drying—unbroken—on the counter a few minutes prior.

“It was just the cat. Next time, make it a _real_ emergency.”

“No, look!”

Scratch flipped his tail and pounced towards the counter again. There, along the baseboard, was the shadow. The swipe of a paw drove it out across the floor. 

“What the _fuck_ is that?” Vegeta asked, recoiling slightly.

“It’s a mouse!”  


“What the fuck is _that_? Doesn’t matter—I’m killing it.”  


“No! Don’t kill it!” 

The mouse darted for the far wall, little feet slipping out from under it on the tile floor. Scratch lunged, Trunks lunged, Vegeta did nothing. Saiyan reflexes won out over rodent and feline. Trunks held the mouse in his hands gently, the grey, worm-like tail poking out between his fingers.

“I caught it! Look, Dad, isn’t it cute?”  


“It’s disgusting. Take it outside.”  


“But—“  


“Take it outside or I’m killing it.”

“Fine…”

Overhead, the roar of a jet engine signaled Bulma’s return. Broken dishes and a mouse, not exactly the homecoming reception Vegeta had planned. Bulma barely had time to set her bags down, when her son came barreling around the corner at her, his outstretched hands cupping something mottled and furry.  


“Mommy, Mommy, look!”  


“Hi, baby, what’ve you—oh, holy sh-sh-shoot… Wow. That is a… big ol’ mouse, isn’t it?”  


“Can I keep it?”  


“Uh…”  


“Welcome back,” Vegeta called from across the room, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Aren’t you _so_ happy to be home?”  


“Please, Mom, can I keep it?”

“Um, well, for right now, why don’t you go into my study, on top of the filing cabinet there should be some sample cases—you know, the plastic ones with lids?—why don’t you put it in one of those for now and we’ll talk about what to do with it.”  


Trunks scurried off with his precious charge in tow.  


“So, what just happened there?” she asked.

“Don’t look at me—I wanted to kill it.”

“Why is there a mouse in the first place?”  


“It was in the kitchen. The cat found it.”

“Okay, so, my child is handling a wild, potentially injured rodent with his bare hands. Cool.”  


“Is that what that phrase is about? ‘Look what the cat dragged in’?”  


“Yeah.”

She had been slowly making her way across the living room and now she closed the last few remaining feet between them, resting her arms around his neck. She kissed him, chastely, her mind still reeling.  


“How do I tell him he can’t keep it?”  


“Tell him the cat needs to learn how to finish what he starts,” he said, his hands cupping the curve of her hips.  


“You’re horrible. No, what if… I’ll just say it’s hurt and I’m taking it to the mouse hospital… but there’s complications during… mouse surgery… and it died.”

“And you say _I’m_ horrible.”  


“Shh! Here he comes.”

Trunks held the plastic box reverently. “So, can I keep it?”

“Well—“

“No.”

“Dad!”

“I stand by my statement: either take it outside or I’m killing it.”

“Vegeta, don’t be cruel.”

“Look at it. It’s terrified. You want to keep it in a plexiglass prison for its short, miserable life? Take it out past the dumpsters and let it go.”

Trunks looked down at his would-be pet. Inside the sample case, the mouse was frozen in a panic, its tiny body pulsing with hyperventilated breaths. Whatever it had hoped to achieve by entering their house, it was probably not _this_.

“Yeah, okay,” Trunks said, starting for the door with a heavy tread.

Bulma waited until he was gone before she spoke.

“All right, you win. That was definitely the right way to handle that. I’m impressed—seems like you did a good job looking after things while I was gone.”

Vegeta snorted. “Yeah, well, don’t look in the kitchen.”

“What happened to the kitchen?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“You know when you say that, it _makes_ me worry about it, right?”

“Mhm.”

Somehow, they had ended up in another embrace, tighter this time, charged with the promise of more. Bulma ran a hand across his cheek and let it slide down the side of his neck, fingers brushing along his collarbone. They kissed again, properly, hungrily, as if it had been four months, not four days.

“Ugh, _gross_,” proclaimed Trunks, returned from his journey with only an empty plastic box to show for it.

“Come here, you,” Bulma said, reaching out a hand to her son. “You were so excited about that mouse, you forgot to say hello! Did you miss me?”

“Yeah.”

“I missed you, too.”

She didn’t realize just how much she really _had_ missed him, until she held him. The feeling of his arms around her waist was like getting back a piece of her heart she’d left behind.

“Mom?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“Can you make dinner tonight?”

“Sure, I’ll make dinner tonight. What do you want to eat?”

“I don’t care. Anything. …Just so long as it’s not fish sticks.”

Bulma never felt at home again until she finished unpacking. She hated the impermanent feeling of things in suitcases, almost as much as she hated putting things away. Almost. She admitted defeat around midnight, dumping the rest of her clothes on top of the dresser and declaring herself Home, with a capital ‘H’.

“Man, I forgot how exhausting it is to pilot a plane for four hours,” she said, flopping into bed. She shifted a bit and grimaced. “Maybe we should get a new mattress. The one at the hotel was like sleeping on a cloud. In comparison, this is… well, let’s just say it’s seen a lot of _action_.”

Vegeta gave a soundless chuckle and turned a page in his book. She loved him like this, sitting in bed in his underwear, reading, like the normal, boring guy that he secretly was. She inched closer to him. And closer, and closer, until he finally looked at her.

“Hi.”

A smirk flickered in the corner of his mouth. He turned back to his book, as if he didn’t know exactly where this was going. Ever the coquette.

“You know, I read Trunks like a hundred bedtime stories tonight,” she said.

“Did you?”

“Oh yeah, I tucked him in _real_ good. That kid is _asleep_.”

“Good.”

“He really enjoyed spending time with you. He says you’re, quote, lots of fun.”

“Ha.”

“Hey, his words, not mine. Anyway, thanks.”

“For what?”

“For looking after things while I was gone. I know it’s hard to be the only parent on duty and it was kind of your first time doing it and I had that freak out Friday night and—Well, just thank you.”

“Of course.” He set his book aside and starred at the wall, as if the words he was looking for might be hiding somewhere in the crown molding. “I think... I should do more... with him... more of the time.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm. You’ve done a lot by yourself and...”

This was dangerously approaching feelings. Bulma laid her hand on top of his. He didn’t have to say it, she knew an apology when she heard one. Up until now he’d been more of a spectator in Trunks’s life. She’d already considered her trip a success after the first bubble-bath, but if it managed to get Vegeta to step up as a father, she was ready to declare it the victory of the century. Maybe even the millennium.

“I mean,” he said with a smirk, “if he wore down _my_ stamina in only a few days, it’s little wonder a delicate creature such as yourself would be driven to the verge of a nervous collapse.”

“You’re such a dick.”

“Tch. It’s the exhaustion that makes you so volatile. Sad, really.”

“Come here and kiss me, you jerk. I’ll show you exactly how volatile I can be.”

It was good to be home again, in her own, lumpy bed, with her own, pain-in-the-ass prince. Tomorrow, it would be back to the lab, to the pile of failed experiments she’d been avoiding. To dirty dishes in the sink and trying to get Saiyan-strength sweat stains out of t-shirts. To carpools and data pools. To PTA meetings and board meetings and explaining to her son why he was too strong to join the peewee football team.

But that was tomorrow. Tonight, she was done being Supermom. Tonight, her only responsibility was to herself, to her own pleasure, and even that she willing turned over to Vegeta’s capable hands. For the second time that week, Bulma gave herself permission to let go. Oh yes, it was good to be home.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue: Movie Night, Revisited

Another Friday, another movie night. Bulma wouldn’t have missed it for the world. She plopped onto the couch between father and son, popcorn bowl in hand.

“So, what’ll it be, boys?” 

“I want to watch this one,” Vegeta said with an uncharacteristic boost of enthusiasm.

“I don’t think I want Trunks watching something called ‘Shogun Assassin on the Demon Road to Hell’—it might give him nightmares.”

“The first one didn’t give him nightmares.”  


“What?”  


“Dad!” Trunks glared at him, betrayed.   


“Oh, right. Shit.”  


“When did you watch that?”  


“Last week,” Trunks admitted, “when you were gone.”

“...You let him watch an R-rated movie?”

“In my defense, it was his idea.”  


“Uh-huh. Okay,” Bulma began. “So, a six-year-old wanted to watch an R-rated movie and you, the adult, just _had_ to comply? You were completely powerless to say no?”  


“Bulma—“  


“I just want to make sure we’re all clear on what happened.”  


“It was fine. Aside from one part—and we skipped that.”  


“Yeah, all the killing was really fake anyway, Mom,” said Trunks as if he was the preeminent authority on such things.

“Very fake,” Vegeta agreed. “Like—tsch!—fountains-of-red-paint fake.”

Bulma turned to her son. “You really watched that whole movie?”  


He nodded vigorously. “I asked Dad not to tell you, ‘cause I knew you’d get mad.”  


Of all the consequences she’d imagined of Vegeta’s weekend alone with his son, the two of them conspiring against her had not even ranked on the list of possibilities. It was infuriating and just a little endearing. At least it meant they trusted each other.  


“But, you don’t want to watch the sequel, do you?” Bulma asked in her best Mom-voice. “Wouldn’t you rather watch _Dexter the Dragon_ or the one with the frog on the boat?”  


“I wanna watch the Shogun Assassin.”

“So do I,” Vegeta said. “Majority rules.”

“Okay, this is not a democracy, first of all.”

“No. It’s a constitutional monarchy, which you would know, if you helped our son with his social studies homework, like I do.”

“You mean, like you do _now_. You literally never helped him with his homework before last week.”

Trunks grabbed the remote and declared, “I’m starting the movie.”

The blurb for _Shogun Assassin on the Demon Road to Hell_ promised it to be every bit as violent and exciting as the original and, boy, did it deliver. It was every bit as violent, exciting and cheesy. Bulma could see how a six-year-old who regularly watched adults beat each other to bloody pulps hadn’t been phased by the severing of plastic limbs, or the gouging of spirit-gum eyes.

It wasn’t a good movie. It wasn’t even, in Bulma’s opinion, a good _bad_ movie. Nevertheless, Trunks and Vegeta were both totally engrossed. It was fun to watch the two of them watch it, to feel them tense in suspense, or laugh at their own, private jokes. They leaned against each other, the three of them, lazy and content while carnage unfolded on screen. 

When the charming courtesan let the kimono fall from her shoulders, Vegeta reached for the remote.  


“Close your eyes, boy.”

“Dad!”

“He knows what breasts look like. He’s seen me get changed tons of times. Not to mention I breast fed him for nine months.”

“I don’t care, we’re skipping this part.”

“Oh, really? So, you draw the line at female nudity? A cold-blooded killer on a massacre is fine, but not nipples?”

“The Shogun Assassin is not a cold-blooded killer. He’s an honorable warrior who follows a very strict code of discipline.”

“Right, that’s why he’s available to the highest bidder,” Bulma said with a scoff. “Because he’s _so_ honorable.”

“He has his reasons.”

“Yeah, you should have seen the first one, Mom.”

“It was explained very clearly.” 

“Fine, whatever. My point is, if you’re okay with our child seeing people get their arms and legs cut off, or a sword to the face, then you should really be fine with him seeing some nipples. There is nothing at all inappropriate about—“

It was right about then that the Shogun Assassin made his move. An unexpectedly amorous move, filled with far more tongue and hip thrusting than was strictly necessary.

“Okay!” Bulma declared, grabbing the remote from Vegeta’s hands. “We are skipping _this_ part, that is for sure.”

The Shogun Assassin made love in double-time while the Briefs politely averted their eyes. Fortunately for them, he had no time for romance. Just a brief dalliance and he was on the road again. Another ambush, another flurry of swords and throwing stars. In the dim, flickering light from the screen, Bulma caught a grin on Vegeta’s face.

“I can’t believe you’re enjoying this,” she said.

He shrugged. “Why not? It’s fun.”

“Fun? Really? I thought you didn’t have time for fun.” 

“Hmph.” 

By the time the end credits began to crawl across the screen, Trunks was conked out, his head resting against Bulma’s thigh. She ran her fingers through his hair, brushing his bangs out of his eyes and smiled. A secret, special smile that only he could elicit. 

“I kinda hate to wake him.”

“Don’t,” Vegeta said, getting to his feet. “I’ll carry him up.”

“If you’ll put him to bed, I’ll do the dishes.”

“Deal.”

A pang of envy hit her as he scooped Trunks into his arms with an ease she hadn’t been capable of since her boy was a baby. As she watched them together, however, her envy dissolved into something warm and loving. Was it her imagination, or was there some tenderness in the way Vegeta held him? Not quite an embrace, but not _not_ an embrace, either.

“Hey,” she said as he started up the stairs. “Come back down here, afterwards.”

“Why?”

She tugged her shirt sleeve to one side to expose a shoulder. “Because this wayward courtesan would like to repay you for your kindness.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Is that a yes?” 

“Of course it is,” he said with a smirk.

And with that, he turned and continued on up the stairs, Trunks still fast asleep against his chest**.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks for reading! This is probably the longest fic I've ever written. Extra love and gratitude to those who subscribed and kept the inspiration flowing with your comments. ❤️


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